These January Decluttering Tasks Take Under 10 Minutes & Make A Huge Difference

Flat surfaces accumulate stuff, whether it’s the kitchen counter, the coffee table, the dining table, or a nightstand. Just pick one and clear it off. Put away everything that has a place, and begin gathering up items that don’t have a designated place in your home. Once you’ve done this to a few surfaces throughout the week, you’ll start to get an idea of what categories of items need a more permanent storage solution, and there you’ll have a bigger weekend organizing project to dive into.

The cabinets under kitchen and bathroom sinks are where things go to rot, honestly. Toss old, dried-out cleaning products, unearth some things you forgot you had, and maybe note what kind of containers or extra shelves would help you make better use of the space, should you choose to spend more time on that later.

Take that sock or undie drawer and dump it out. Toss anything with holes, wear and tear around the edges, you name it. Any socks without matches must go. You’ll be surprised how much easier it is to find your favorite pair of gym socks when you don’t have to sift through a bunch of loners.

I know, I know, it’s painful to think about. But hear me out: How many of those mugs do you actually use? And are you happy cleaning and storing the rest of them, even if you don’t drink out of them? Would you be happier if you had that space back for something else? Make some tough calls, and I promise you won’t regret it.

That balsamic glaze from 2022 has to go, babe. All the dressings and sauces in the refrigerator door get overlooked when we’re cleaning out leftovers, but no longer. Take back your fridge shelves.

This is a tried-and-true method of figuring out which clothes you should keep without having to stand in front of your closet for hours debating with yourself. Take 10 minutes and flip all your hangers backwards. When you wear an item from your closet, flip the hanger back around the right way. In six months to a year, you’ll be able to see clearly which items you wore and which ones you didn’t. Donate what you don’t use. Boom: no more hours-long closet clean-out wormholes.

Much like sauces and condiments in the fridge, how often do any of us check the expiration dates on our spice collection? Sadly, my husband and I recently learned we’d been nursing the same industrial-sized garlic powder since, like, 2019. Clean out the spice cabinet and give yourself some space back.

Why am I always digging through so much sh*t in my purse to find the thing I need? How many menstrual cups do I really need in here? Surely the answer isn’t the seven currently clogging up my bag. And don’t get me started on all the lip balms. Just... dump out the bag. Throw away the garbage (you know there’s literal garbage in there). Leave what you actually use and put away the rest — you know, all the stuff that makes it hard to find the one Chapstick you’re always rooting around for.

You don’t realize how much packaging and just trash accumulates in a junk drawer, from empty boxes of Duracells to dried-up tubes of super glue. Toss the crap, give the inside of the drawer a wipe-down, and put the rest back, maybe to be organized at a later date (if you care).

Roughly half of our kitchen junk drawer is taken up by loose batteries rolling around in various stages of decay. I bought a battery organizer on Amazon to put them all in and love it, but you could also just use Ziploc baggies or old food storage containers to achieve the same thing without spending any money. Just gather them all up, throw away any that have deteriorated or stopped working, and store the keepers by size so you always know where to find the AAs.

Medicines expire! I forget this often. Go through your stash of cold, cough, flu, and pain remedies and check those dates. Lord knows the next time you’re sick, you want the medicine you take to actually work.

Makeup and nail polish expire, so if you’ve been nursing two or three mascaras for more than six months, it’s time to toss them all before you get a stye. Check your cosmetics for the little symbol that looks like a jar being opened — the number inside it indicates how many months after opening the product it should be thrown away. You should also clear out any polishes that are more than two years old. Bonus points if you let go of any makeup or polish you just know you’ll never use.

Decluttering is good; preventing clutter so you don’t have to declutter every day is better. Setting up a drop zone in my house for us to toss car keys, wallets, and mail helps contain the mess and takes up less visual space. You could find a pretty decorative tray, bowl, or hook system, or just use a big mixing bowl until you find the right vessel and place to keep it in the house.

Your inbox isn’t a physical space, but it sure can add to how chaotic your brain feels. If you have 10 minutes to spare, sit down and unsubscribe from as many newsletters and mass emails from retailers as you possibly can. You may not get them all in one sitting, but you can make a good dent.